Samantha Rae Garcia held her position as a restaurateur in Midland, Texas, for four years before deciding last year that she could no longer tolerate criticism from her boss. Mme Garcia, a psychology student at the University of Texas Permian Basin, consulted with her parents. She recorded her decision moments before quitting. She then made a TikTok video about it.
In the video, which was recorded spontaneously, Mme Garcia, then 23, bats her eyelashes, smiles and gives a satirical thumbs up. Her boss, off camera, says she’s had enough of taking care of her. The text of the video reads: “My boss didn’t know I was there while she was talking about me. »
Mme Garcia, using a word that cannot be printed, whispers a response, calling her boss a “bad manager.”
Since the video was posted in February 2022, it has been viewed 3.7 million times.
PHOTO ALVARO BERNIS, THE NEW YORK TIMES
Before the resignation videos appeared on TikTok, users were sharing similar stories on YouTube and Facebook.
TikTok is full of advice on what to do after quitting your job. Mme Garcia is part of another trend, predating TikTok, where young people post mini-dramas that attract millions of viewers. In some cases, these very public videos can lead to new career opportunities, helping those who post them build their personalities online.
Quit videos — or QuitToks, as they’re sometimes called — reflect “a breach of the social contract that if you work hard and play by the rules, the American Dream is still here for you,” says sociology professor Ann Swidler. at the University of California at Berkeley, whose courses focus on the sociology of culture. Corporate loyalty isn’t what it used to be, according to Ann Swidler. There is “a cultural disillusionment with the promises that lie behind the world of work”.
Service workers in low-paying jobs publicly proclaim that the implicit trade-off of working to earn money is no longer fair. And with 1.9 job openings for every person looking for work, they can afford to take the risk of speaking out publicly.
According to Joseph Fuller, professor of management practices at Harvard University Business School, the common theme running through these videos is that of “dashed expectations.” “Nobody takes a job thinking, ‘This is going to be terrible, I can’t believe I have to do this,'” he said.
“Generally, people don’t quit their jobs,” he added. They leave a boss. »
Marching bands and dances
Before the resignation videos appeared on TikTok, users were sharing similar stories on YouTube and Facebook.
In 2011, Joey La Neve DeFrancesco, then 23, posted a video on YouTube in which he quit his hotel job with the support of his marching band. In a recent interview, he explained that he had been frustrated with long working hours, low wages, tip sharing and opposition to unionization. “I wanted to send a final message to management and do something that would be funny for co-workers and maybe inspire the fight against union-busting managers,” he explained.
In the video, a smiling DeFrancesco and his band members confront one of his superiors who, upon seeing the musicians, attempts to order everyone out. “I am here to tell you that I quit! “replies Mr. DeFrancesco. He tries to hand his resignation letter to the manager, but it falls to the ground. He then raises his arms triumphantly, and the band strikes up a celebratory tune. The video has been viewed 8.5 million times.
This three-minute video allowed him to appear in the shows Good Morning America, Access Hollywood And Anderson Cooper 360. It has “changed my life”, he said, even if it has not changed its values: Mr. DeFrancesco works mainly as a union organizer.
“Sweet Revenge”
Many recent quit videos seem like a whim. Like Mr. DeFrancesco’s, Marina Shifrin’s was planned. In September 2013, she was 25 and working in Taiwan, where she wrote, as she puts it, “celebrity articles.” After suffering “constant harassment from [son] boss,” she said, she was “in the process of [s]’collapse’.
She felt trapped in a system that abused young women. “I had no resources to get out of this situation, so I turned to the internet, because that’s where I spent most of my time. »
Mme Shifrin took a methodical approach. “I’m probably the only person who’s posted a viral video and made a pros and cons list,” she said. Cons include “no more health insurance” and “I’ll never get hired in the corporate world.” Mme Shifrin decided that the pros outweighed the cons.
In the video, titled “A dance for my boss based on the song Gone by Kanye West” (“An Interpretive Dance for My Boss Set to Kanye West’s “Gone””), Mme Shifrin writes that she is at work at 4:30 in the morning. Dressed in a green blazer and her employee name badge, she performs the interpretive dance of the title, in the toilets, in a recording studio, on a desk and in the aisles, while superimposed text lists the reasons of his departure. When she emerges from a cubicle, the text reads: I QUIT! [JE DÉMISSIONNE !] When she leaves the office, she turns off the lights. The text says: “I left. »
IMAGE ALVARO BERNIS, THE NEW YORK TIMES
Resignation videos are a kind of performance art.
The job she was leaving required her to get as many views as possible; her response video was successful, she says, because she focused “on content instead of worrying about views.” The fact that her video went viral was, according to her, a “sweet revenge”.
In less than 24 hours, while Mme Shifrin was traveling from Taiwan to Los Angeles to participate in the show The Queen Latifah Show, she got about 2.6 million more views. Hollywood agents called her. Latifah offered him a job on the air. For seven years she worked in television and published a book called 30 Before 30: How I Made a Mess of My 20s, and You Can Too (30 before 30: how I wasted my 20s and you can too).
The videos of Mr. DeFrancesco and Mme Shifrin were a kind of performance art. Today, resignation videos are less about presentation and more about specific complaints. Many feature minimum wage workers, often young women.
The emotional punch
In February 2020, Maria Kukulak recorded her decision to quit her job at Wendy’s because, according to her, her new bosses were “really mean.” Mme Kukulak says she will resign after completing her service: “I will sweep and then jump out the window. Midway through the TikTok video, she learns that a manager called her a “lost cause.” She jumps out the window as promised. “I’m not a lost cause and I’m quitting,” she told her boss. Bye. »
His video has been viewed over 15 million times. Mme Kukulak now works as a personal trainer and doesn’t make a living from TikTok, but would love to. “I love filming myself,” she said in a recent interview. With 227,000 followers, she dreams of becoming a full-time content creator. “I think I have talent,” she said.
This article was originally published in The New York Times.